REAL talk… integrating Rescue Hens

[ANiceKaren]

Hi there! I need some real, down to earth, solid advice! Please I have a small flock of four girls.. all 4-5 years old. I’ve been considering rescuing 3 (6 month old) hens who’s flock according to owner was killed by a coyote and these are the survivors. I have plenty of room.. 2 coops within one large run area. Safe.. covered..my four current girls all sleep in one of the coops so I have an entire coop they could have. My girls also free range all day in our fenced yard. My question is how to most easily integrate them. Do I really need to quarantine? That would be really hard for me and not sure the husband would agree to them being in a dog crate in garage for 30 days. I do have a section of the run I could fence off for a while and let them free range supervised? Just trying to see if this could be fairly easy as I’d love to give them a good, loving, safe home

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Here's simple steps!

1. Once you bring the new girls home, put them in the empty coop and quarantine them for 3-4 weeks to prevent the spread of diseases to your healthy flock.
2. I would do a simple health check on the new girls. Check for parasites such as mites. Even a minor sypmtom such as lethargy would be a bad sign of a disease. I would deworm. Others may give new chickens other meds such as coccidiostats but personally I haven't done that before.
3. Its not really possible to do the playpen method with older chickens, as most people do not have a coop big enough to fit a cage and there's often not a cage big enough to fit a few adult chickens. After quarantine, I would simply just put the new hens in with the existing hens. They will figure it out. Trust me. Its definitely not as problematic or risky as introducing chicks to adult chickens!!
4. Within a few weeks, the new girls will have it all figured out with the other girls. For my newest additions, it took about 2-3 weeks for them to seem comfortable around the original flock.

Others may have different methods, but this one worked for me personally.

Also, have you visited the new ones yet at the person's house? Many chicken keepers do this to make sure that the seller isn't giving them sickly or parasite-infested birds to begin with.

Honestly you could just put these new additions in one flock by themselves and not even worry about incorporating them with the other girls. Its totally up to you.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

You should always quarantine. For real, I've skipped quarantine a few times, and for the last few new additions, there's some reasons why I took the chance. Was this flock the owner's first flock? Where did they get them? Did they get them together, or separate? Was this flock ever exposed to other people's chickens? What did they use for bedding? You could probably check for mites on the spot, but asking doesn't hurt, though if they say that they don't have mites or they don't know, check anyway.

On integration, it can also depend on multiple factors, but for easy, it's how you do it. My most successful means is sneaking them in on the roost at night after dark. Either way, with any method, you will still need to expect two weeks for them to adjust. This is even the case with the "look, no touch" method. They need to peck each other to settle the pecking order. Looking only gets all the nasty words out of the way first.

 

[talkinboutchickens]

You should always quarantine. For real, I've skipped quarantine a few times, and for the last few new additions, there's some reasons why I took the chance. Was this flock the owner's first flock? Where did they get them? Did they get them together, or separate? Was this flock ever exposed to other people's chickens? What did they use for bedding? You could probably check for mites on the spot, but asking doesn't hurt, though if they say that they don't have mites or they don't know, check anyway.

On integration, it can also depend on multiple factors, but for easy, it's how you do it. My most successful means is sneaking them in on the roost at night after dark. Either way, with any method, you will still need to expect two weeks for them to adjust. This is even the case with the "look, no touch" method. They need to peck each other to settle the pecking order. Looking only gets all the nasty words out of the way first.

Well said, especially on that last part!!
Admittedly, I have skipped quarantine as well, because i didn't have the resources to quarantine them (didn't have an extra coop or other space.) I knew that I was wrong in not quarantining them, but I was always on the lookout for diseases to suddenly pop up in the new hens!

 

[ANiceKaren]

Here's simple steps!

1. Once you bring the new girls home, put them in the empty coop and quarantine them for 3-4 weeks to prevent the spread of diseases to your healthy flock.
2. I would do a simple health check on the new girls. Check for parasites such as mites. Even a minor sypmtom such as lethargy would be a bad sign of a disease. I would deworm. Others may give new chickens other meds such as coccidiostats but personally I haven't done that before.
3. Its not really possible to do the playpen method with older chickens, as most people do not have a coop big enough to fit a cage and there's often not a cage big enough to fit a few adult chickens. After quarantine, I would simply just put the new hens in with the existing hens. They will figure it out. Trust me. Its definitely not as problematic or risky as introducing chicks to adult chickens!!
4. Within a few weeks, the new girls will have it all figured out with the other girls. For my newest additions, it took about 2-3 weeks for them to seem comfortable around the original flock.

Others may have different methods, but this one worked for me personally.

Also, have you visited the new ones yet at the person's house? Many chicken keepers do this to make sure that the seller isn't giving them sickly or parasite-infested birds to begin with.

Honestly you could just put these new additions in one flock by themselves and not even worry about incorporating them with the other girls. Its totally up

 

[ANiceKaren]

Thanks so much! All great advice! I’ll ask all those questions to their current owner! The quarantine is the hardest part for me because my coops are both within the same run. I have a small prefab coop outside but it’s too small for 3 girls and not safe enough… for me that’s the hardest part.

 

[rosemarythyme]

You can't cheat on biological quarantine. If you don't have facilities for a full separation (with both flocks separated by at least 100' and clothing changes in between), then just skip it - it's only additional stress with no benefit for the birds.

If that's the case then you need to consider what's your tolerance for risk and how much do you trust the owner's husbandry and their honesty about the flock's health. And if the birds realistically have already been exposed to each other, even if they've never met. Like if this is the next door neighbor, or a person that you've visited in the past (and maybe then trekked into your own yard without changing clothes and shoes) then your flock has already been exposed anything their flock has.

 

[Mrs. K]

Do NOT take anything you are sorry for. Do NOT take if they are sneezing. I would not take if these people add birds from auctions, or shows. Who knows what they are exposed to.

But technically these birds are quarantined from your birds, under more space apart than you could possibly do in your own yard.

Now sometimes moving birds, will cause a latent disease to pop up. If it does, cull immediately.

There is a real risk, if you cannot cull birds, or would go into a mental decline if you loose birds, then don’t add them.

I too, do not quarantine, except one time when I got a rooster in a hard molt. Molt can hide sickness, but he grew in new feather and was fine.

Definitely check them over, but if they are bright eyed, active and eating, I would take them.

Add or rearrange the clutter in your run, add multiple feed bowls to the run situated so that one can’t see other birds eating at a different bowl. Lock the original birds out in the yard, the new in the run. Have both coops available to all birds, let the old birds in close to dark and you should be good.

Mrs k

 

[ANiceKaren]

Thank you! The previous owner hasn’t gotten back to the rescue so I think that made my decision easy! Maybe they decided to keep them